Carlos,

On Mar 1, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Carlos A. Afonso wrote:

> Dear people,
> 
> I have expressed my concern to the organizers regarding one of the

Right, and I replied to you privately a couple hours ago.

> My concern is that it is unbalanced regarding the expressions of the
> "developing countries".

Again,

1. I invited Olga Cavalli from Argentina but she's recently said her flight doesn't get in on time.

2. I invited Alice Munyua from the Kenyan government but she needs more time to see if she can make it.  I just spoke with her again here in Brussels and she can give me an answer on Thursday.

3.  If Alice can't do it I said I'll invite someone else.  We need people who've been engaged with and can speak to the topics:

> To what extent has ICANN addressed the unique concerns and promoted the
> participation of developing country stakeholders?

For example, we've been raising these questions in the Council and at the ICANN meetings, resulting inter alia in the formation of the JAS WG that's been working on options to help developing country and other resource challenged actors to deal with the high application fees for new gTLDs.  Avri and Rafik co-chair the group, so I asked them to speak about that and related.  There've also been the parallel discussions about promoting developing country participation, such as the Board WG meeting in Nairobi I spoke at, and the outreach team Olga's led.  And the conversations around this with board members and others at the workshop I organized at IGF Vilnius on ICANN and developing countries, and all the other continuing discussions with board staff SGs et al around these issues.   

> How do developing
> country governments' experiences with and attitudes toward ICANN affect
> the larger geopolitics of Internet governance, such as their continuing
> pressure in the United Nations for a new intergovernmental body that
> would have "oversight" of ICANN?

Issues that are being illustrated here in Brussels, as well as last week in Geneva, and also have been addressed e.g. in the five IGF events I've organized on development agenda issues.  I asked Markus Kummer to join for that part of the discussion because he's recently left the hot seat at the IGF and can now speak freely to these issues, which all the current and hoped for panelists have pretty extensive first hand experience with.

> What do these dynamics mean for the
> global public interest, and for the priorities of noncommercial users?

We will have about 50 minutes to cover all this grounds, so like 25 minutes on internal ICANN and 25 on external geopolitical dimensions.  So nobody's going to have tons of mic time and we will need to move crisply through a structured discussion (not serial talking heads) in order to map this terrain and provide the audience with a good framework for discussion.  

> If you share this concern, could you help
> suggesting more names from the South which could be added (if the
> organizers agree, of course), and who will certainly be in San Fran by
> March 11th?

Thanks.  Let me see what happens from Alice and if that doesn't work let's look at options.
> 
> I understand it should be a person who is closely
> following/participating in the international IG debate from civil
> society's perspective.

Yup
> 
> Just in case, I am out of question as I am not following the
> issues/events/processes as closely as I should. Some very good people (I
> can think of Alice from Kenya) will not arrive on time. Not sure about
> Alex Gakuru's schedule though -- just to give a few examples of names.
> 
> It may help to take a look at the current list of registered participants:
> 
> https://www.registration123.com/reports/saved.cfm?r=%24*%40L%26V0%20%20%0A
> 
> Or maybe I am way out of my "jurisdiction" here... :)

I told you I was working on it.  But ok, this panel doesn't have to be developed in the same way as all the others, suggestions of people who've been closely engaged with the topics and will be in attendance would of course be welcome.

Best,

Bill